City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) (20 page)

Resentment stiffens Aiah’s spine. “I will ... consider it. If I may share the intelligence.”

“I will pass it to you.” Her lips turn up in a cold smile. “A personal favor. In exchange for this little kindness to me.”

The next hours are long indeed.

GOVERNMENT TO SELL WORLDWIDE NEWS SERVICE

INTERFACT AND THE
WIRE
CONSIDERED LIKELY BUYERS

By work shift the next day Great-Uncle Rathmen has surfaced in Gunalaht— “perched like a vulture over his bank accounts,” as Constantine remarks. Constantine is on his way to a cabinet meeting and Aiah walks along beside him, moving fast to keep up with his long strides.

“I’ve received Sorya’s report,” he says, “concerning the duty officer who sabotaged the airlock mechanism and propped the doors open to allow a thread of plasm to enter. And the other guards on watch obeyed his orders to keep the doors open, even though they must have known how dangerous it was.”

“Timing was crucial,” Aiah says. “You can’t leave a plasm sourceline just sitting there in a prison for hours. This must have been prearranged, and in detail.”

“By Rathmen’s lawyer, we presume, as well as the duty officer.” A wry smile touches Constantine’s lips. “The duty officer cannot be found, and is presumably either at the bottom of the Sea of Caraqui or sitting next to Rathmen atop a new bank account in Gunalaht. And the lawyer, we are told, is ‘unavailable’— a good idea, since under martial law we could confine him to Rathmen’s old cell and search his mind for evidence of guilt.” He gives a sigh. “And no one will believe this was not by prearrangement of the government. No one.”

Aiah looks at him. “Was it?”

He stops dead in the corridor, and a thoughtful frown creases his brow.

“Who?” he wonders. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Rathmen’s interrogations were almost complete. We have enough to blackmail him into cooperation fifty times over. Free, he could be of use passing information on to, say, one of our intelligence organizations.”

She does not want to mention Sorya by name, but she found it odd that Sorya should personally want to control the investigation into what after all was merely a prison breakout.

Constantine considers this for a moment, calculation visible behind his eyes. “I do not find your theory entirely persuasive,” he says, “but I will explore the possibilities. And I think ...” He pauses for a moment. “Rathmen is condemned to death,” he says finally. His expression turns hard. “Perhaps the sentence should be carried out regardless of his current location. It would do much to correct any erroneous impressions this escape may have created.”

Aiah thinks about this. “Dangerous,” she says.

“Taikoen,” Constantine says. The single word, spoken softly in Constantine’s resonant voice, seems to vibrate in the air for a long time. Aiah feels a palp of cold horror touch her neck.

“No,” she says instantly; and then, because she has to justify this instinct, says “No” again. “Too dangerous,” she adds. “It would be remarked. We don’t want Taikoen known, or even rumored.”

He gives her an equivocal look. “I would not in any case order such an extraordinary sanction on my own authority ... Drumbeth, at least, will have to concur, though I will not tell him the means.” He smiles. “I am a
good
minister,” he says, “a
good
subordinate.” The smile turns rueful. “A
good
dog. I will have my allotted biscuit, and nothing more.”

Amusement tickles Aiah’s backbrain.

Constantine probably repeats these words, like a prayer, every day.

THIRD RECORD-BREAKING MONTH!

LORDS OF THE NEW CITY

TIME TO SEE IT AGAIN.

“We in Caraqui are uniquely suited to test your theories,” Constantine says. “May I light your cigaret?”

“Don’t bother,” Rohder says, and lights his new cigaret off the old.

Constantine is all charm, all attention. His manner suggests that Rohder is the most important, most fascinating thing in the world.

Rohder seems oblivious. A splendid meal has been laid on in the Kestrel Room, not a single thing grown in a vat, and Rohder eats a few bites and pushes it away. Fine wines and brandies are rolled out, and Rohder asks for coffee. By way of showing his familiarity with Rohder’s achievements, Constantine offers endless compliments on
Proceedings
and Rohder’s other work— a solid record of scholarship stretching back centuries— and Rohder shrugs it off.

Constantine puts his lighter back in his pocket, calculation glowing in his eyes. He hasn’t given up yet.

Aiah sits between them at the table, nibbling her food and watching this contest of champions. She knows Constantine’s charm— she has had this intensity turned on her, and knows how difficult it is to resist.

Indeed, she reflects, she had
not
resisted it.

Her onetime boss sits in his cloud of smoke, oblivious not only to Constantine’s attentions but to the glorious view from the outcurving windows. Rohder’s gray suit manages somehow to be both expensive and ill-fitting. His lace is dotted with ash and cigaret burns. His three-hundred-year-old skin, though crisscrossed with a network of fine lines, is pink and ruddy with health, and he peers vaguely at the world from watery blue eyes.

“Caraqui’s infrastructure,” Constantine continues, “is suited to constant experimentation with plasm-generating distance relationships. Over eighty-five percent of the metropolis is built over water, on big barges or pontoons. This has formerly been considered a disadvantage as regards plasm generation, because we can’t build as tall as other districts. Less mass, less plasm.”

“I noticed from the aerocar that the buildings seemed small,” Rohder says.

“The barges are strung together with cables, or with bridges that, generally speaking, are to one extent or another engineered with a certain degree of flexibility in their spans.”

A light snaps on in Rohder’s eyes as if someone has just thrown a switch. For the first time he seems aware, his mind focused on his environment.

“You can alter the relationships between the barges?” he asks.

Aiah recognizes the hint of a smile that touches, feather-light, the corner of Constantine’s mouth. The smile that says, at last, at last, he has found his way.

“Yes,” Constantine purrs. “Absolutely. Imagine what you could do in Jaspeer if you could move entire city blocks around to find the proper geomantic relationships. Well,” and the smile rises full, white incisors gleaming, “well, here it is possible.”

Rohder’s look is intent. “What is my part in all this? Can’t you do this yourself?”

“I am Minister of Resources,” Constantine says, “which in our local political cant means plasm. Resources I have, but not all those I would wish, and my greatest need is for minds. Minds such as yours do not come along every day.”

“I do not think,” Rohder says, “that quite answers my question.”

“I will create a new department within Miss Aiah’s division,” Constantine says. “I think I have enough credit with the triumvirate to be able to do that, particularly when I explain how, and to what degree, our nation may be enriched by such an action. You will be the head of it, though unless you have some strange, unfulfilled desire to be involved with personnel matters, funding, and so on, I will make an effort to find some sympathetic deputy, agreeable to you, to take that business off your hands.” He leans forward and looks close into Rohder’s eyes, searching for understanding.

“I want you to devote yourself to working your theories out in practice. I will provide you with all necessary support, with aerial surveys and as much computer time as you deem necessary.”

Rohder draws on his cigaret as he absorbs this, and lets the cigaret dance in the corner of his mouth as he replies.

“And what do you plan to do with this plasm if I can generate it for you?”

“
Ah ...” A laugh rolls out of Constantine’s massive chest. “That is the critical question, isn’t it?” He leans even closer, lowers his voice in intimacy. “If it’s made available to other departments, then it will simply be diverted into fulfilling the other ministers’ agendas. I wish to preserve any plasm generated by your theories for other work— other
transformational
work.”

Rohder absorbs the word
transformational
with a little frown. “What sort of work do you have in mind?”

“
Have you read my book
Freedom and the New City
?”

“Sorry. No.”

“Are you familiar with Havilak’s Freestanding Hermetic Transformations?”

“Yes.” Rohder nods. “Improving the plasm-generating efficiency of structures that already exist by altering their internal structures through magework. It’s an old idea, far older than Havilak.”

“Of course.” Conceded with a smile. “That part of my work is just a popularization.” “But even after the hermetic transformations, all you get is more plasm. What do you plan to do with the surplus?”

“
Plasm is wealth,” Constantine says, and then shrugs. “What does one do with wealth? Spend it, if you’re a fool— and most governments are foolish in the long run. Invest it, if you’re conservative, in such a way as to live off the dividends and never disturb the principal. But if you’re very wise, and possess a certain daring in your spirit, you use it to generate more and more wealth. The very
existence
of such a stockpile of wealth is transformational, especially in a place like Caraqui, which is so poor.”

Rohder leans back and contemplates Constantine from amid a cloud of cigaret smoke.

“You have a habit of not fully answering my questions,” he says. “Assuming all this comes to pass, and assuming you manage to keep your job, you will have an enormous reservoir of plasm, and you will be in charge of it— so what do you intend to do with it?”

Constantine holds out his hands, smiling gently. “Truly, I am not trying to be evasive," he says. “The fact is that all actions have unforeseen consequences. It will be decades before this pool of plasm even exists, and in that time Caraqui will, I hope, have changed for the better. I can answer your question only in the most general terms.”

Rohder regards him from unblinking blue eyes.

“
Very well,” Constantine says. “I will speak generally, then— I would use this fund to accomplish what the political transformation, by that time, had not. Sell plasm to provide education and housing and medicine for our population generally, clean and replenish this abused sea on which we sit, perform other work of ...” He smiles. “Of an exploratory nature. Transformation is very difficult in our world— it takes tremendous resources to build anything new, because one must disrupt the life of the metropolis by settling everything and everyone that is displaced, and tear down the old thing and build the new. But with plasm— with
enough
plasm— all things can be done. And the geography of Caraqui makes it easy— slide an old barge out, a new barge in, and the disruption to life and the economy is all the less.” His face turns stern, like one of the Palace’s bronze eagles sniffing the wind. “I confess that my ambition is such that I will not leave the world in the same condition as I found it. Reading your
Proceedings
, I sensed a similar scale of thought. Will you not join me in uniting our dreams and bringing them to reality?”

“I will give it consideration,” Rohder says, and reaches in his pocket for another cigaret.

Constantine produces an envelope and slides it across the table. “This is my offer. I hope you will do me the courtesy to consider it.”

Rohder picks up the envelope and looks at it as if he does not know what it is. Then he crumples it absently, and puts the ball of paper in his pocket with one hand while he lights the cigaret with the other.

Constantine watches this, the gold-flecked eyes glittering with amusement. “If you have finished your meal,” he says, “perhaps you would like a tour of the city on my boat? You may see these barges for yourself, observe how you can transform our entire world with a few engineers, some cranes, and a handful of workmen....”

CRIME LORD DENOUNCES "NEW CITY TYRANNY”

Aiah says good-bye to Rohder and then watches as the man shambles to the waiting aerocar. Wind flutters Aiah’s chin-lace. Constantine leans close, speaks over the whine of turbines. “I hope I may be optimistic.”

“I hope so, too.”

She had enjoyed watching the two operate, Constantine seductive and manipulative, Rohder alternating intense interest with total, blank-eyed opacity. Aiah had found herself wondering if Rohder’s detachment, his total withdrawal from the world, was a strategy. A way of not acknowledging the things he didn’t want to deal with.

How would the Cunning People rate this? she wonders. Who is the
passu
, and who the
pascol
? Turbines whine as they rotate in their pods. Suddenly there is the presence of plasm, crackling in the air like ozone, and Aiah’s nape hairs stand erect as the aerocar springs from the Palace’s pad and jets toward the Shield. The aerocar is a wink of silver in the distance before its trajectory begins to arc toward Jaspeer.

“Now,” she says, “we will find out how bored he truly is.”

Constantine looks at her. “Bored?”

“If he is bored enough in Jaspeer— if he is fed up enough with the pointlessness of his life there— he will come.” Her eyes follow the aerocar on its way across the world. “He only chased criminals with me because he was bored,” she says.

Constantine’s eyes narrow as he absorbs this. “I wish you had told me. It would have made it easier to deal with him.”

“I only realized it just now.”

“Ah.” There is an amused glint in his eye, and he puts an arm around her. His laugh comes low in her ear. “That is your gift, I think, to drive away the boredom of old men. Where was I before I met you? Stewing in my penthouse, occupying myself with trivialities— writing my memoirs over and over in my head, as old men do when there is nothing else to occupy them. And then—” he laughs again, a rumble she feels in her toes— “and then here was Miss Aiah, in the expensive new suit she’d bought just to impress me, with her plans to sell me a treasure trove of plasm she’d just happened to acquire, in hopes I would use it to make her rich and myself the master of the world ...”